rice cake confessional

Another tale of getting moted.

We were trying to go to this new Brazilian place for dinner. Surprise! It’s only open for lunch during the week. This place is really close to Jane’s house. Since we’ve been meaning to try it for awhile, this was as good a time as any to finally give it a whirl.

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We’re always on the look out for a Bay Area equivalent to mango sago. So far we’ve been unsuccessful, but Hello Desserts does bring us one step closer.

If you’re familiar with the South Bay, Hello Desserts is in the Ranch 99 complex in San Jose right off of Hostetter near the side that has the Goldilocks. Do you like how I give directions based on important landmarks like Ranch 99s?

We ended up here after we were moted trying to see Forbidden Kingdom a few weeks ago (it was sold out). The place is super cute inside and smells of waffle cones a la Coldstone’s Creamery.

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I’m a big fan of Top Chef (reality TV + food = yay). This season a few of the chefs are from San Francisco which means that with just a little bit of effort you can go out and taste for yourself. Jane’s good at getting me out and about and suggested we try Circa for their Top Chef dinner.

Chef Eric Hopfinger was eliminated from Top Chef a few weeks ago after a bad round of lobster corn dogs sent him home. His restaurant , er the the restaurant he’s exec chef for (no clue if he owns the joint), is very… Marina – microsuede covered seats, wooden tables, jewel curtains.

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I nabbed Naked’s new flavor of juice in the lobby at work last week. Not just any flavor either – watermelon breeze. I love watermelon (Tagalog word of the day: pakwan). So much excitement that I took a picture of it with the penguin.

Tastes faintly of watermelon with a strong grape taste (due to the addition of white grape juice) and then a tang of lime. More watermelon, less grape please.

You would think I would be done with any HK-related posts. Yet here we are.

Check out these Roasted Sausage Flavour Mongkok Style potato chips. I can’t do a comparison to the original Mongkok sausages but these chips were pretty good. I expected them to be neon orange from the pictures on the front of the bag but they were only lightly dusted with spice.

Like barbeque flavored chips except with a slight hint of sausage. Weird but pretty good.

My dear old Dad was diagnosed with diabetes a few years back. He’s lost something like 35lbs in these last few years. Takes a lot of will power to refrain from gorging on steamy white rice (speaking of rice, what is UP with the price doubling?!) and sugary desserts. Luckily he doesn’t have to never eat these things, he just has to enjoy them in moderation.

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Julia and I had work this weekend so we made sure to not burn the midnight oil on Friday. Instead, we (Julia, Jlin, and I) headed out at 5:30pm to catch some sun and grab an early dinner.

We strategically placed ourself on Castro (the one in MV not SF) for easy access to frozen yogurt after dinner. It didn’t take too much thinking before ending up at Amarin Thai. I’ve been to Amarin before but have yet to post about it.

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RAWR from the Ritz.

Me and the rest of the HK crew have not been on an international flight in 3 months. We’re antsy for something that requires a passport but those kinds of things take a lil’ more planning.

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Alameda is Spanish for ‘grove of poplar trees’. Sushi House is BayArea-nese for ‘big sushi with a long line’.

My first adventure to Sushi House was courtesy of J-nice (Janice’s new rap name) post-Berkeley PCN a few years ago. I haven’t been back since but got the chance for Round 2 when I met up with roommate #2 this weekend.

Sophia aka Soapy and I were roommates at UP Diliman back during our study abroad days. Items of note here include the fact that me and Soaps enjoy eating, like adventures in the Philippines, and are the same size. This means it was easy to haggle at shops in the Philippines because we really wanted 2 of everything.

Okay yah the sushi. We started dinner with miso soup (unremarkable + bad photo = not posted) and shared three generous rolls.

Crunchy.

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Check me out. My social calendar was booked this weekend. Lots of plans and lots of meals to be had. The fun started with dinner at PVH (if you’re curious I tried the chicken curry that JenLui had a few weeks ago – very ginger-y and lemongrass-y) and Gamba Karaoke (faves include: Independent Woman, No One, and the always annoying Umbrella).

On Saturday I met up with my long lost roommate from my 2nd year, Becca. Becs hails from Alamo up in the East Bay aka really far from me. We were very good roommates but are very bad at getting together. Case in point, it’s been 2 years or so since the last time we got together.

Becca is a lawyer. A forreal-as-seen-on-TV-I-go-to-court-and-stuff kinda lawyer. It’s pretty awesome.

We decided to look for a lunch place on Santana Row and ended up at Sino which is this fancy, lounge-like Asian fusion place. We partook of the dim sum menu and ordered one entree to share.

First up were the chicken curry dumplings (pictured above). No clue why the picture looks like I took it at JC Penney studio. The pastry on this is very good. Buttery and crumbly, and perfectly baked. The filling is your ho-hum chicken curry. The pastry is what makes it a winner.

I also opted for baked bbq pork bun. Again the pastry was good but the filling was only so-so. I thought the bbq would have been good had whatever alcohol they add to the sauce been cooked down more. In this state, it was too overwhelming.

I got tricked by this one. On the menu it’s listed as ‘lobster seafood soup dumpling’. I saw soup + dumpling and thought they were going to bring me some xiao long bao. UM. Not so much. The broth on this was simple but well seasoned. The dumpling itself is good with big chunks of lobster inside. What’s not cool is that the dumpling looks like a giant stomach which is less appetizing than a cutesy little xlb.

We shared a plate of beef chow fun which I found just alright. The beef was very tough. The veggies were good though.

Glutinous rice with some sugary dusting (semi-flowery tasting?) and then liquid black sesame. They could have used a thickening agent to help make the inside not explode everywhere as soon as you bite into it.

Sino would probably be a nice place to start off an evening. The entire front part of the place has long benches and sectioned off lounge areas. Everything is red and black – part ode to Asia, part better for clubbing ambiance.

The entire meal set us back about $40 (we also had one other plate of dim sum that I didn’t get to taste as well as some hot jasmine tea).

I wouldn’t avoid it but I probably wouldn’t ask to go back. 3***

Sino: 377 Santana Row #1000, San Jose, California 95128